Exploring Kootenay Lake

The male Hooded Merganser in breeding plumage is one of the most comely ducks in the neighbourhood. Yet, it is not seen all that often.

The Kootenay Lake website offers other pictures of local mergansers on the page about diving ducks.

Three merganser species have been seen around the Lake. The commonly seen one is appropriately named the Common Merganser. Much harder to find, and smallest of all, is the Hooded Merganser (the hoodie). Only rarely seen is the Red–breasted Merganser.

I was fortunate yesterday to watch a Hooded Merganser couple on a local pond. Sometimes the male had his hood up, sometimes down. I even managed to record them in flight (below).

Male Hooded Merganser in breeding plumage with his hood raised

The hoodie couple cruising across the pond

The couple takes off

Migration is hard work. The Tundra Swans that visit Kootenay Lake have travelled only about 800 kilometres of a 2,800 kilometre journey to the tundra of the Canadian Arctic where they will breed. Feeding and rest stops along the way are needed, and both take place at Kootenay Lake.

The Kootenay Lake website offers other pictures of local Tundra Swans.

Today a flock of over three–dozen Tundra Swans stopped by the West Arm. They settled on the lake between Troup (south shore) and Emory’s Corner (north shore). This is not a shallow area and so there was not much evidence of feeding. Resting was another matter. Look at the final picture: two of the four swans shown have their eyes closed (look at their white eyes). Indeed, at any given moment, perhaps a third of the swans were asleep. How they managed to maintain their position is unclear.

Swans have been seen at the two ends of the Main Lake for some weeks now. But, prior to this morning, I had seen none along the West Arm.

In April, I normally watch for swans at Robert’s Bay (in front of Blaylock’s), and on either side of Kokanee Creek Park. The extensive shallows at these locations only seem to appeal to swans when the Lake is quite low (as it becomes in April) for then their long necks enable them to forage on the lake bottom.

So far, I have seen swans at neither location, but an early morning phone call from a neighbour alerted me to swans at an unexpected place: along the south shore near the mouth of Laska Creek.

So, which type of swan were they: Tundra or Trumpeter? I could get no closer than a half–kilometre across the water. I took pictures anyway (right, below). There were a dozen of them and they were almost certainly Tundra Swans. Unfortunately, by mid morning they had all moved on.

The Kootenay Lake website offers more pictures of local Tundra Swans and of Red-tailed Hawks.

The great distance to the swans and the fact that it was raining at the time made for rather poor portraits. This was not the case the day before, when I was on a trip into Nelson, a Red–tailed Hawk flew fairly close to the car. What can I say: my camera was ready and produced what I rate as a thoroughly satisfying image (the last picture below). I hasten to note that I was not the driver in the car during this encounter.

Today I saw my first Merlin of 2011. It was hunting at a place I have seen Merlins other years.  (I thought I had found one earlier in the month, but that bird turned out to be a Sharp-shinned Hawk).

Beyond my interest in just seeing the Merlin was the fact that the picture revealed that it had been banded. My guess is that for a local Merlin to wear a band, it would have received it near Boise where the Idaho Fish and Game has been studying the bird: the Merlin holds Idaho’s ranking of a Species of Greatest Conservation Need. I will try to track this down.

This same grouse has appeared in this blog before as Perfect camouflage. There is also a page on the Kootenay Lake website about local grouse.

I think I have a grouse in residence. I have seen a Ruffed Grouse beside my driveway, in my yard, and even in my trees quite a few times over the last few years and increasingly in the last few months. I am told that an individual grouse needs a space of only a few hectares—it seems that part of this one’s range includes my yard. Well, superb.

Below are two pictures of it this evening. It seemed to ignore (or possibly merely tolerate) me. It wandered around in front of me and even stopped to forage as I clicked away.